


fireworks in your heart

by ohmcgee



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, Off-Season, Pies, Slow Build, so many southern culture references to shake a stick at
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-07-15
Packaged: 2018-04-09 10:22:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4344815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmcgee/pseuds/ohmcgee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The terrible, awful, absolutely nothing good can come from this truth of the matter is that Jack Zimmerman -- Bad Bob Zimmerman's quebecois speaking, hockey playing, sometimes-mini pie-making prodigal son -- loves Savannah.</p>
            </blockquote>





	fireworks in your heart

“Mama, I can’t _believe_ \--”

“Dickie,” Suzanne says. “Your voice is doing that high pitched thing. You’re going to start attracting all the neighbors dogs.”

Bittie flushes impressively and stomps his foot. “You can’t just invite my friends to come _stay_ with us.”

“Why not,” Suzanne asks as she dredges a pork chop through flour. “I told him he could come visit any time during family week and he said he’d love that.”

Bittie huffs. “He was being _polite_ , mama. Kind of like when Ms. Francine from the library gets nasty with you about dog-earing the pages and you say ‘bless her heart."

This time Suzanne blushes. “That woman is a menace.”

“And so are you,” Bittie says, adding more salt to the collards on the stove. “You can’t just call up the _captain_ of my hockey team and ask him to come stay with us for a week. It’s _founders week,_ for goodness sake.”

“I know!” Suzanne squeals and the grease sizzles when she drops a pork chop in the pan. “You boys are going to have so much fun!”

Bittie sighs. He knows his mother means well, but sometimes. Sometimes he just wants to trade her for a new set of pie plates. 

 

***

 

The terrible, awful, absolutely nothing good can come from this truth of the matter is that Jack Zimmerman -- Bad Bob Zimmerman's quebecois speaking, hockey playing, sometimes-mini pie-making prodigal son -- loves Savannah.

He doesn’t complain about how hot and muggy it is, doesn’t complain about the mosquitoes or the horse flies or the fire ants, doesn’t even complain when Bittie’s little cousins ask him what ‘a hockey’ is. 

Actually, Bittie probably complains more than Jack does. He’d almost forgotten just how humid Savannah is in July and his hair is doing some truly stupid things. He snaps Shitty a pic of it one afternoon with the captions “Help?? HELP????”

Jack even enjoys Founder’s Day despite it being so hot outside the meringue on Bittie’s banana cream pie liquefies as soon as they set it in the trunk of his mom’s car. They head straight over to main street and Bittie’s mama disappears with her arms full of pies for the contest later that evening while Jack and Bittie wait for the parade to start. Bittie rambles off facts about the town’s founder and how founder’s day is really more like founder’s week with little traditions and celebrations every day and tries not to stare at the sweat rolling down the muscle in Jack’s neck. 

Jack even seems interested when the parade finally starts, mouthing _they’re good_ when the marching band walks by, snorting a little at all the beauty queens perched on top of fire trucks and in the back of convertibles. The last float in the parade is the high school football team’s, pulled by Bittie’s dad in his big red Dodge. The float is covered in toilet paper and silly string, blaring Nickelback from the sound system on the trailer and the football team is violently pelting out candy. When Jack steps in front of him to block a roll of Lifesavers headed straight for his face, Bittie feels a little bit like a damsel being saved by a white knight.

Possibly the heat is getting to him. Possibly Jack Zimmerman is the personification of Prince Charming.

After the parade they head down to the festivities by the lake and have a picnic. It’s not weird because it’s just another tradition and besides, why would it be weird? The grassy area in front of the lake is full of people on quilts and blankets with baskets of food, some of them using the grills next to the picnic tables to grill up hot dogs and hamburgers. Bittie packed cherry pie and blueberry cobbler and the sandwiches made from the ham his mama cooked the day before Jack flew in, a couple of bottles of water and Jack’s favorite flavor of Gatorade. They mostly don’t argue that _blue_ isn’t actually a flavor.

“Everyone’s really nice,” Jack says, leaned back on his elbows as a couple of kids play frisbee in front of the lake. Jack doesn’t say much. He never says much, but somehow when he does it always sounds like he’s saying more than he really is. 

“I guess so,” Bittie says. “I mean, yeah. They are. But also --”

“Also?” Jack turns his head to look at him and Bittie forgets what he was going to say. Jack’s cheeks are pink from being out in the sun all day and so’s the back of his neck, and there’s a little smear of cherry pie filling in the corner of his mouth. Jack isn’t a big fan of cobbler, which Bittie thinks might be his only flaw.

“Oh,” Bittie says, tearing his gaze from Jack’s mouth. “They’re judging the pies!”

When Jack says, “Congratulations, Mrs. Bittle,” leans in and kisses his mother on the cheek, Bittie absolutely does not tear up. 

A gnat just flew into his eye. Probably.

***

 

“That’s a lot of sequins,” Jack says, flipping through Bittie’s mom’s old photo albums because his mother is _the spawn of satan_ and he is _totally_ removing her from their pinterest board. “I mean. That’s a lot of sequins.”

Bittie’s gotten a little better about chirping now though, so he just smirks. Well, he tries to smirk. Everytime he’s tried to pull it off at the Haus Holster or Shitty would just ruffle his hair and _awww_ at him, so he doesn’t think the full force of it is really, you know, happening. 

“I dunno,” he says. “I think ours jerseys could do with a little bit of sparkle, don’t you?.”

Jack cuts his eyes at him.

“I mean,” Bitty says. “I’m kind of a pro with a Bedazzler.”

Jack schools his face into a serious expression. “You know. It would make our numbers pop.”

Bittie holds his expression for as long as he can and then they both lose it and start laughing. Bittie says they should totally prank they boys when they get back and Jack goes somber at the thought.

“Oh god,” he says. “No. Holster and Rans would never take the things off.”

They dissolve into another fit of giggles, laughing and laughing and laughing, and Bittie only stops when he remembers what day it is, that the week’s almost over.

 

***

 

One of the biggest deals of the summer is the ginormous fireworks display over the lake on the fourth. People come from like, all over just to bring their lawn chairs and quilts and watch two hours of the most amazing firework show this side of the Mason Dixon line. 

“You know,” Suzanne says to Jack that morning, plopping more grits on his plate. “They talked about it on Regis and Kelly once.”

Bittie’s pretty sure Jack has no idea what a Regis or a Kelly is, but he smiles bright and says something nice and pushes his fork around in his grits, swirling the pad of butter Suzanne dropped in the middle of them around.

“Bittle,” he whispers conspiratorially. “Explain grits.”

“Observe, Mr. Zimmerman,” Bittie says and chops up the fried egg on his plate, then proceeds to fold the pieces of egg and yolk into his grits, mixing the two together.

Jack looks _horrified._

Bittie doesn’t bring up how weird _poutine_ is because he doesn’t, actually, want to get punched in the face. 

“That,” Jack says. “Is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen Johnson doing naked yoga, Bittle.”

“Oh shush and try it,” Bittie says and before he can think about it, before he even realizes what he’s doing, he’s shoving his fork right in Jack’s mouth.

Jack makes this little noise of protest and Bittie’s cheeks heat up like there’s a fire in them and he drops his fork onto his plate with a _clank._

“Um,” he says. “Sorry, I --”

“Huh,” Jack says, licking his lips. “That’s not terrible?”

Bittie grins. “Eat your breakfast, Zimmerman. We’ve got pies to bake.”

 

***

 

The thing is, Bittie only knows the stories about Jack. He’s never actually talked to him about his past, about what happened, about why he locks himself in his room for hours after a game -- even if they win. He knows Jack had some problems and that his dad being who his dad was probably put a lot of stress on him, but you never really know until --

\-- until you see the look on someone’s face, a mixture of pure terror and panic, a bead of sweat sliding down their temple, grabbing your arm like it’s the only thing anchoring them to the planet and saying _help_ with nothing but the expression in their eyes.

“Sorry,” Jack says once they’re back in the truck, hunched over with his forehead pressed against the glovebox. “I’m fine. You go can back down to the lake, but I’m. I’m just going to stay here.”

Bittie wants to reach across the cab of the truck, wants to put his hand on Jack’s back and rub slow, soothing circles between his shoulderblades. “I’m not going anywhere,” he says, then with a little smile when Jack turns his face to look at him. “Hashtag got your back.”

Jack smiles a little, then sighs and buries his face in his hands. 

“I don’t like crowds,” he mumbles between his fingers. 

“What about the games?” Bittie asks, curious and wanting to keep Jack talking. “All those people in the stands. You don’t seem to mind that.”

“I do,” Jack admits. “I just have something bigger to focus on. But it’s still there.”

“Gosh, I’m sorry, Jack,” Bittie says. “If I’d known. I mean, lord. That’s a whole bunch of people. No wonder you were freaking out.”

“It’s okay,” Jack says. “You didn’t -- I don’t really like to talk about it.” He gives a sad, shaky laugh. “I was really looking forward to seeing the show, actually.”

“You were?” Bittie asks. It still amazes him that Jack hasn’t been bored to tears, that he didn’t turn on his heels and hop back on a plane as soon as he met Bittie’s Moo Maw and Pee Paw. 

“Yeah,” Jack says. “Just not…”

Bittie nods and then -- then he gets An Idea. 

“Buckle up,” he says, turning the engine over, making a face when Toby Keith starts singing about how sexy patriotism is or something and Bitty mashes every button on the radio until he _stops._ “We’ve got a show to catch.”

 

***

 

Jack asks him where they’re going as soon as they go under the first red light.

“You’ll see,” Bittie says.

He asks again when Bittie turns down a little dirt road that Jack thinks shouldn’t even have a road sign.

“You’ll _see_ ,” Bittie tells him.

“Bittle,” Jack says when they pass a pasture of cows. “If I start hearing banjos --”

“Oh shush, we’re here,” Bittie says and turns down a tiny trail, finally coming to a stop in the middle of a field. He grabs the quilt they were going to sit on at the lake out from behind the seat and lets the tail gate down, spreads the blanket out over the bed of the truck just as the first firework shoots up in the sky and explodes into tiny flecks of red.

“Whoa,” Jack says, his face lit up and Bittie forgets to watch the fireworks for a minute, watches them sparkle in Jack’s eyes instead.

“Come on,” he says finally. “Have a seat.”

Jack climbs into the back of the truck with him and instead of sitting on the blanket with his legs pulled up to his chest like Bittie he leans all the way back to get a better view. After a few minutes Bittie follows suit, his shoulder pressed against Jack’s shoulder, his hip against Jack’s hip.

Reds and greens and purples and blues explode into starbursts and roses and shower down from the sky and every now and then Jack says, “Cool,” or “Sweet,” and Bittie can’t stop _smiling._

After the grand finale, which Jack casally states was “clutch as fuck,” Bittie grabs them each a soda from the ice chest he packed and they sit on the edge of the tailgate, watching the lightning bugs flicker out in the woods. Jack’s leg keeps brushing his when he swings it back and forth and Bittie keeps having to swat at mosquitoes on his legs and wipe the sweat off his top lip and it’s kind of the most perfect moment of his life. Until Jack says:

“You haven’t told your parents.”

Not a question. 

“T-told them what?” Bittie asks, he thinks, rather calmly. This has become routine for him, after all. He doesn’t know _why_ he’s still pretending with Jack. Or. If he thinks about it knows exactly why, but he doesn’t actually want to do that, thank you very much. 

Jack gives him this _look_ and it’s like. It’s just this _Jack_ look. Bittie can’t even describe it. Most people would say it’s a blank expression, but Bittie knows that face, okay? He’s probably spent more time staring at that face and thinking about that face than he did baking pies last semester. There’s nothing blank or expressionless about it. It’s something about the eyes.

“That you’re gay, Bittle.”

Bittie looks at his hands. “Ah.”

Jack snorts. “Ah.”

“No,” Bittie finally says. “But it’s not -- I only just, you know, told _myself._ ”

“You came out to yourself?” Jack asks, and that might even be a little amusement in his eyes. “How’d you take it?”

Bittie grins a little, unable to hold it back. “I was kind of a jerk.” He’s kidding, but -- he’s also not, and then there’s that _look_ again, that expression that’s not an expression in Jack’s eyes.

“Oh,” Jack says quietly, staring out into the woods, looking like he wants to say something else, but he never does.

Bittie reaches back and fishes another cold soda out of the ice chest. He’s not even that thirsty. He just needs something to do with his hands.

“It’s hard,” he says, playing with the tab, bending it back and forth until it breaks off. “Being from the south. I know you think everyone’s real nice and they are. Well, you know, that’s how they seem.”

Jack nods. “People have different faces.”

Bittie doesn’t know quite what to do with that so he takes a sip of his soda. It’s past eleven o’clock and the crickets are getting so loud he can hardly hear himself think. The sun’s been down for hours but it’s still at least eighty degrees out and his shirt is sticking to him all over and he’s sitting so close to Jack that he can smell the inspiring mixture of sweat and cologne wafting off of his warm skin and _lord_. Bittie really needs to bake.

“You can really see the stars out here,” Jack says, tilting his head back and Bittie looks up. He’s lived here all his life and after going away for a while you start to take for granted things like this. Still, he wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. He’s so grateful for all the new opportunities he’s had, all the really great people he’s met. Like Shitty and Holster and Ransom. Like Jack. 

Jack’s leaned back again, staring up at the stars, so Bittie sits his soda on the edge of the truck and joins him.

“Do you know the constellations?”

“No,” Jack says. He’s taller than Bittie and his feet hang off the end of tailgate. “Not really.”

“Me neither,” Bittie says. “Coach bought me a telescope once and tried to teach me about them with all these stories. The only one I remember is the one about Gemini.”

“Yeah?” Jack asks. “What’s the story there?’

“It’s about these twin brothers, Castor and Pollux. When Castor was killed, Pollux asked Zeus to let him share his own immortality just so they could stay together.”

“Hm,” Jack says. “Sounds like Rans and Hols.”

Bittie smiles. He really does miss those two idiots. 

“They’re really kind of amazing to look at, aren’t they?” Bittie says after a minute or so, drumming his fingers on his stomach as he looks up at all the little flecks of white in the sky. The moon is just a sliver of light in the sky; _god’s thumbnail_ , his mama calls it.

“Yeah,” Jack says and his voice sounds weird, like that time he apologized for Bittie getting checked, like it was anywhere near his fault. “I kind of feel like this is the first time I’m really seeing them, you know?”

Bittie scrunches his forehead up, not really sure what Jack means by that and when he turns his face to the side Jack turns _his_ face to the side and oh, hi there, that’s Jack’s _mouth_ , pressing right up against his. Bittie thinks it’s one of those weird, awkward accidents at first, but then Jack presses a little firmer, reaches out and his fingers brush over Bittie’s ear and Bittie makes seriously, the most embarrassing sound probably known to man, pulls away and says, “ _Oh._ ”

“Am I,” he says, licking his lips and tasting Jack’s RC Cola. “Jack Zimmerman. Am I stars?”

“Well,” Jack says, a little smile playing at the edge of his lips. “You do shine bright.”

Bittie grins. “Like a diamond?”

Jack reaches down between them and his knuckles press up against Bittie’s knuckles and Bittie’s heart _kind_ of stops for a second. “If you tell Rans and Holster that I know a Rihanna song, I’ll --” his eyes light up in the most evil way possible. “I’ll give Shitty your Moo Maw’s banana pudding recipe.”

“JACK LAURENT ZIMMERMAN YOU WOULD NOT!” Bittie shrieks and Jack’s face splits into this grin that Bittie’s never seen before and then jack’s kissing him again, the barest hint of tongue before he pulls away again, leaving Bittie gasping.

“Nah,” he says. “I wouldn’t. She said she’d ‘take a switch after me.’ Whatever that means.”

Bittie dissolves into a fit of giggles against Jack’s shoulder. He can’t actually believe this is happening. He kind feels drunk even though he hasn’t had a single drop of alcohol the whole night. He never imagined this could’ve happened. He never even knew it was a _possibility._ There was that night during the Epikegster, but Bittie only overheard a little bit of their conversation and it wasn’t polite to eavesdrop and he _knew_ assuming made you, so he’d just figured he heard things wrong.

“I thought you were straight,” he says against the collar of Jack’s t-shirt and Jack sighs.

“I’m not.”

“Is that why,” Bittie says, biting his lip. “Was that part of --”

“Yeah,” Jack says. “Not all of it. But it was part of it. It was just...everything.”

Bittie nods. 

“Jack,” he says a few minutes later. “What about Kent Parson?”

He wants to know, but he doesn’t want to know. But he needs to know. So.

Jack sighs. “He was my first.”

“But?” Bittie asks because he knows Jack Zimmerman and he can hear the _but_ just as clearly as if Jack had said it outloud.

“But we’re not good for each other.” Jack says. “And that night. At the epikester. He wants -- he just wanted to hook up and fly back to Vegas the next day and -- I don’t do that.”

“Long distance relationships?” Bittie asks and Jack snorts.

“Parse wouldn’t know a relationship if it fucked him in the ass.” 

Bittie’s mouth falls open. He’s not sure he’s ever heard Jack talk like that off the ice and it’s -- it sure is something, alright. 

“No,” Jack says. “I don’t do hook-ups, Bittie. Just not my thing.”

“Oh,” Bittie says and mmm, that’s Jack’s fingers playing with his hair. “In that case.” Bittie shuffles out of Jack’s arm even though he really, really, reallyreallyreally doesn’t want to, sits up so he can look at him. “Jack Zimmerman. Would you be my date to the Backyard Bonfire tomorrow night?”

Jack smiles up at him and Bittie’s heart _bursts_ like a pinata. A pinata full of glitter and sequins and cupcakes and hockey pucks and everything great and fabulous in the world, but then it slowly slips off his face. Bitty almost goes chasing after it.

“But,” Jack says. “What about your Mom and Dad? You haven’t told anybody yet.”

Bittie shrugs, hint of a smile in the corner of his mouth. “I wore sequined spandex for three-fourths of my life while I twirled around to Celine Dion. I think somehow they’ll adjust.”

“Are you sure?” Jack asks, that adorable crease in his forehead, and Bittie just nods and lays back down, curls into his side like a cat and looks up at him, leans forward and presses his mouth to Jack’s.

They kiss until Bittie starts giggling against Jack’s mouth and Jack frowns.

“Sorry,” Bittie says, blushing. “It’s just. We’re two male hockey players making out in the back of a pick-up truck in a field in southern Georgia. Shitty would go nuts over all the cultural and heteronormative themes we’re destroying right now.”

“Bittle,” Jack says sternly. He’s using his Captain voice and Bittie is not ashamed to admit that does _things_ to him. “Do you want to talk about Shitty or do you want to keep kissing me?”

“Well,” Bittie says and leans in, cards his fingers through Jack’s hair and presses their mouths together.

He’s not even going to dignify that with a _response._


End file.
